Women's Bantabaa aspiration is always to tell a story that has never been told and bring a story to public that are always waving the flag of freedom yet standby silently with the concerning situation of the people, their narratives, their perspectives, their understanding of the world around them, without feeling that they are constantly defending their religious and cultural identity.

Monday, August 10, 2015

A woman's short ecstasy

Njola was a widow who lost her husband eight years
ago. She lived in a dilapidated house with her children.

Njola as a woman and a mother had lived a joyous
life with her husband before his untimely death. She later fell into the hands
of his womaniser boss who was just interested in abusing her and left her to
die a sympathetic death. Many a woman has died a similar death.

Njola's story

Njola has been a pride of her family when she got
married to Sutuko, a construction consultant who worked with an engineering
company, immediately after the completion of her senior secondary school.

Her husband's talent had saved the engineering
company a fortune during his seven years of service. The young consultant
enjoyed life with his wife. He always felt proud of her among her peers. He
found Njola as a virgin when they got married. This earned Njola respect both
in her family and that of sutuko.

No sooner was her husband elevated to the position
of chief consultant than his services were terminated. Neighbours, relatives
and friends attributed it to superstition.

As Sutuko remained jobless, Njola convinced him to
move from the flat they were living to a less expensive house. They searched
for a house, but the only house they could afford was a dilapidated house, where
they moved to settle with their three children.

“Things started to tumble down only when my husband
was making enough money and progressing professionally”, cried Njola.

A year later, Sutuko felt severely sick. When he
visited the hospital, stroke was diagnosed. In a short while he died as a
result. Njola had no idea what widowhood entailed.

“I am shocked by my darling's death; the bringing up
of my children is my biggest headache now. I feel as if my blood is draining
out of me. I don't think I'll ever get married again. I had 8 years with my
husband. I loved him and he loved me. I and my husband called each other Honey
as if this were an exotic intimacy,'' said the widow, screaming at the top of
her voice.

She always looked at her children and shed tears.
She decided to stay at home to mourn the death of Sutuko for forty days as
prescribed by tradition, before she could find any job.

The frantic energy about feeling lost, alone,
frightened, disoriented and anger was filled in Njola's mind like one who has
been slammed over the head with a sledgehammer.

After the forty days, she visited Sutuko's
colleagues at the company to enquire whether he had any money there or an account
elsewhere, only to realise that there were none. She then depended on the
charity money given to her from sympathisers for the upkeep of her children in
the meantime. She continued to manage with her children in their dilapidated
house.

“With all what I enjoyed with my husband, we have no
home of our own or an account that the family can depend on for survival. My
children have nothing to inherit from their father in terms of wealth. This
means that we were spending all what Sutuko was earning. This is more than an
incident”, she said to herself.

With the assistance of a former class mate, Njola
picked up a job at a petrol station in Kanifing. She started to pay the
children's school fees, rent and provide feeding from her meagre salary.

She was unfortunate to meet a boss who was a
womaniser who takes advantage of women's situations. When he knew Njola's
condition, he promised to move her to a new flat and pay the rent. The poor
isolated widow accepted her boss's proposal.

She has been feeling worthless, but persuaded by her
boss to trust their relationship as she was promised that money was not going
to be her problem.

The boss always spent most of her weekends with
Njola at the new rented flat.

Her best friend and former class mate who facilitated
her getting a job visited her. When one realised that Njola was in love with
the womaniser, she gave her a good sisterly advice to be content with what she
had. “This man will play with you like a toy and throw you away. Njola you were
proud and praised. You were married as a virgin. Do not allow your condition to
be taken for granted by such men. If you continue struggling, one good
gentleman would soon come across you by the grace of Allah”, her former class
mate told her.

My friend, Njola said, “You have told me a stark
truth. But this new life of mine is just going to be a temporary one. If you
have nothing people treat you as nothing”, she shyly responded.

But she could not change. She was thinking that the
man would salvage her from her present situation.

Few months later, Njola became pregnant and was
given a leave by his boss. She was the talk of town in the neighbourhood. In a
short while, she gave birth to bouncing twin baby boys.

When this news hit her employer, he gave a draconian
warning to all his employees that if they mentioned Njola and his issue they
would lose their jobs. He went to Njola and told her to continue with her
indefinite leave.

As the matter became a scandal, Njola's boss left
for the UK where his family is staying. He left Njola without a job, with no
means of survival and no one to help.

She could not explain this to anybody.

When the Imam in her area knew that she was
suffering, he told his wives to be giving her food.

Njola was so desperate that she had to join the
ranks of sex workers. She started roaming between brothels for survival.

She became briefly ill and subsequently died.

Her children continued to suffer. They are now taken
to an orphanage by an Afro-American philanthropist.

How many women are dying this way leaving their
children in the worst situation a human being can face on the face of this
earth?

1 comment:

My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

For all this, I would ask you one small favor: Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Gambia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Gambia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

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About Me

Binta A Bah is a young Gambian journalists/blogger who is excited, on the sustainability reporting front which she took as massive a headway as a career. She is the publisher of women’s Bantabaa, an online blog which focuses on human rights, particularly women’s right, press freedom and freedom of expression. She started the journalism trade with The Daily News in 2009 while pursuing a one year certificate course in journalism at Insight Training Center. She hold a diploma in journalism. At The Daily News, she rose through the ranks to become a senior judicial affairs correspondent. She has a vast experience of covering high profile cases including treason trials. She run the ‘Musoolula Bantabaa’ on the Daily News, a weekly column that focuses on women’s affairs. In 2011, she was awarded The Daily News Journalist of the year. She now works with the Standard Newspaper as an associate editor following the closure of The Daily News by state authorities.